Deutsche Telekom announced a plethora of new technologies, products and services on Thursday in the run-up to the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin including a new high-speed broadband network with speeds of up to 50 Mbit/s!

Walter Raizner, Member of the Board of Management responsible for Broadband/Fixed Network at Deutsche Telekom, spoke of "joining the top group of broadband states", referring to plans to construct a high-speed network. T-Com intends to provide Germany's 50 largest cities with high-speed broadband lines by 2007. Speeds of up to 50 Mbit/s mean that Germany will join the ranks of the top broadband states. By mid-2006, the first cities will be connected to the new optical fiber network. This will enable 2.9 million households to use state-of-the-art technology within their own four walls. Up to 3 billion Euro are to be invested initially in the coming years in Germany to meet the conditions for developing completely new services and applications. Of course, these and other investments must also be viewed against the backdrop of market success and the general situation on a new market.

"Our vision is to give the customer access via one single line - i.e. our broadband connection - to the wealth of the multimedia world, using a range of devices: at present telephones, televisions, PCs, video telephones and multimedia boxes. The benefits of this for our customers are obvious. They will have easy access to superfast Internet, video, games offers, high-quality general entertainment and interactive learning," said Raizner.

Participants in the pilot trials in Stuttgart und Hamburg can already test high speeds of up to 25 Mbit/s for six weeks free of charge. The only conditions: answering a few questions at the end of the trial - and being quick. Only a few hundred participants can take part. Starting today, anyone interested in participating in the trials can register at www.t-com.de.